In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop into it. Those are the gifts of subterranean conscious.
Mortimer AdlerRead
You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.
Interpretation
Taking time for rest and reflection is essential for creativity and thought.
Mortimer Adler highlights the importance of giving oneself space and time to think, suggesting that periods of inactivity can facilitate creativity and allow new ideas to emerge. Without moments of stillness, our minds may become cluttered, hindering the process of thinking deeply and effectively.
In practice
You might use this quote during a workshop on creativity to emphasize the importance of downtime.
In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop into it. Those are the gifts of subterranean conscious.
The only standard we have for judging all of our social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts.
A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser.
If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.
If it's still in your mind, it is still in your heart.
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.
O powerful goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me.
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
Out of 6 billion humans, the troublemakers are just a handful.
When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.
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